The
U.S. has the lowest piracy rate in the world, but globally
nearly $50.1
billion dollars has been lost to piracy. As
illegal downloads become a growing problem worldwide,
individual countries may determine that they do not share the same
issues and concerns.

A new report
published June 1 from IDC Research Iberia claims that over
95 percent of music in Spain is pirated. The report indicates
that the country lost $6.3 billion in the second half of 2009.
It is estimated that the country lost about $12 billion dollars for
the entire year.

The study was commissioned by the Coalition
of Creators and Content Industries and targeted music, film, video
game, and book distribution. The final results indicated that 95.6
percent of music obtained online in the country was pirated. Pirated
films were estimated at 83.7 percent while video games came in at
52.3 percent.

Nearly 6,000 internet users in Spain were
surveyed for the study.

"The real figures are even
worse," says Coalition president Aldo Olcese, who believes that
internet users under the age of 16, presumed to be the most frequent
illegal downloaders, were not included in the study.

Anti-piracy
legislation, called the Sustainable Economy Law, is expected to be
rolled out after the summer in Spain.

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I'm afraid you're not right: it's not a felony, but it's not legal either; they can't take you to jail, but you are liable for civil responsibility... in much softer terms than what we've seen in the US, anyway (so much that copyright owners have never law-suited anyone over this, to my knowledge)

we pay a tax ("canon") on all recordable media (CDs, DVDs, MP3 players, and now even hard drives), even the ones that will be used to store our own material (photos, personal work, etc), and that gives us the right to make personal copies of any copyrighted material; since 2006, though, the law requires that you make your personal copy from a legally-accessed copy, and personal copies cannot be lent, so most P2P is outlawed (you can't lend personal copies, not make your own from other people's personal copies)

renting a movie and getting a copy for yourself: 100% legalgetting a book from a library and making a copy for yourself: 100% legal, as long as you make the copy yourself (we also pay a "canon" on scanners)making a copy for yourself out of your sister's original CD: 100% legalmaking a copy for yourself out of your sister's personal copy of a CD: not legal (though not a crime either)P2P: grey area, at best

first, there are many things that are not legal but are not crimes either, like parking in the wrong place: they can charge you money for that, but they can't take you to jail (no es legal, pero no es un delito penal, es un ilícito civil)http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=%22ilicit...

apart from that, yes, that's the piece of law I was talking about; I'm glad to see I'm among knowledgeable people here, most people in Spain wouldn't know about it, apart from the usual noisy legends

as I understand it:

* the first paragraph says P2P is allowed, as long as the uploader has the right to distribute that stuff, and the downloader has the right to own that stuff, or if you are just an intermediary in a data transaction and there's no money around (you're not liable if bits of data temporarily go through your system as part of a P2P network)

* the second paragraph says you have the right to make your own private copies of copyrighted materials, as long as you make the copy yourself, from legally accessed works, and don't earn any money from them

these private copies are for your own personal use, and cannot be lent or shared, so you can't upload them through P2P; you can upload originals (if you're not getting any money, directly or indirectly, say through ads), but not private copies

the other key point in the P2P debate is that in 2006 they changed the law to include the "legally accessed works" bit; before that, if the uploader was uploading illegally, my copy was still lawful; now, I think, if he doesn't have the right to upload, then I don't have the right to download, because that wouldn't be "legally accessed works"; this makes 99.99% of P2P unlawful; you could try to spin it to infinity saying you thought your peers had paid-for originals, but I doubt you would get far with that argument

the copyright owners' association (SGAE), though, is not prosecuting anybody over these terms yet, so everybody feels safe; but that doesn't make P2P legal (they've gone after direct download sites, and won, and after link sites, and lost, even on the "illegal but not a crime" count, so linking is totally legal, but that, still, doesn't make P2P legal)

the very, very funny part is that the law also says that, as you have the right to make personal copies of copyrighted materials (except computer programs and databases), but some of those come with DRM (DVDs, and now most CDs), the owner of the copyright has the obligation, if you ask for it, to provide you with the tools to make your own personal copy; not that I'd want to check how they manage these requests...

"Paying an extra $500 for a computer in this environment -- same piece of hardware -- paying $500 more to get a logo on it? I think that's a more challenging proposition for the average person than it used to be." -- Steve Ballmer